Reviews

• gamedeal user

  Nov 1, 2021

  [H1]THE SHORE: ONE OF THE BEST IF NOT, THE BEST LOVECRAFTIAN GAME EVER MADE[/H1] Honestly, this game has the perfect setting for a Lovecraftian story. Everything (well, almost) is perfect in this game. The gloomy atmosphere of dread and full loneliness, danger lurking at you especially once you reach the true "Cthulhu dimension", now the game get's even more frantic and surreal. The pacing is perfect, the visuals are outstanding, the music is so grandiose and creepy at the same time. You really feel the COSMIC HORROR in this game! And as a fan of LOVECRAFT/COSMIC HORROR, this game nails it PERFECTLY. I played TONS of Lovecraft games and for real, THE SHORE nails it. I won't say much of the story since that is bound in the spoiler area. The game store page got the proper synopsis. I could go on and on so I'll just fill up the pros and cons. [h1]PROS:[/h1] [b]+Creepy atmosphere +Dreadful story +AMAZING ART STYLE AND VISUALS (sure, the rocks seem low poly but who cares really!) +Grandiose soundtrack. +Monsters variety. +Tense chase sequences. +Proper UltraWide monitor support (not perfect though).[/b] [h1]CONS:[/h1] [b]-The interaction pointer is quite off the middle screen in UltraWide Monitor. Always had to turn the view to the left for proper interaction. Seems minimal but that is not the case. Later in the game, you get chased by monsters and without proper interaction, you can get hit and killed easily. Annoying really! -Many invisible walls. The game is mostly linear but has SOME exploration required. -Monsters blocking your way of movement during chase sequences. -Short playtime (between 2 and 4 hours at most). That is debatable since I did find the playtime appropriate for this title. I do recommend playing this in one sitting for maximum impact. -The replay value is quite minimal in The Shore. Once you finish the game and found all achievements, you don't have anything else to do.[/b] [h1]OVERALL:[/h1] [b]THIS GAME IS MADE BY ONE DEVELOPER (with the help of others too but you get my point) and wow, Ares Dragonis is so damn talented. I so wish you make more games like this and heck, that is the kind of MOVIE I'd love to watch. The world needs more LOVECRAFT content! As for this game, I loved pretty much everything about it. I was left speechless whenever surrounded by big cosmic horror sh!t happening![/b] [h1]DEDICATED TO ARES DRAGONIS[/h1] [b]If you ever add another big update, please offer some chapter support or at least, consider that for your next project! Would love to select a specific chapter to showcase my friends.[/b] [h1]RECOMMENDATION:[/h1] [b]I AM IMPRESSED! I loved it and you gotta play this especially if you love Lovecraftian games/story. DO NOT EXPECT SOME POW POW RUN AND GUN HERE. THIS IS AN HORROR GAME, TRUE TO ITS FORM. SUPPORT THIS DEVELOPER! MORE GAMES LIKE THIS DESERVE TO EXIST! EVEN AT FULL PRICE, GET THIS![/b] [h1]RANT[/h1] [b]FOR ALL THE HATERS OF THIS GAME, YOU GUYS ARE SMALL MINDED CREATURES. YOU DO NOT APPRECIATE THE TRUE ART ASPECT OF SUCH A PROJECT AND TO KNOW THAT ONLY ONE PERSON MOSTLY DID EVERYTHING IS SUCH AN ACCOMPLISHMENT. I KNOW THIS GAME IS NOT "PERFECT" BUT HECK, IT IS SO MUCH BETTER THAN SO MANY BROKEN RELEASED AAA GAME OF TODAY! STOP THUMBING DOWN GOOD PROJECTS LIKE THIS! AND NO, I HAVE NO CONNECTIONS AT ALL WITH ARES DRAGONIS... EVEN THOUGH I'D LOVE TO![/b] [h1]END RANT[/h1]
• gamedeal user

  Nov 16, 2021

  TL;DR Nice atmosphere and enticing visuals overrun by tedious design choices, simple mistakes and fanfiction writing Exploration game with endless invisible walls. Story is no more complex than "I lost my daughter, I'm gonna go through a Lovecraft haunted house to get her back" and at no point did I care about the protagonist or his daughter. Lore conveyed through several message-in-a-bottles is a cool idea, but riddled with spelling errors. Notes also often have watermarks of the monsters you encounter and are assumedly drawings by the note's author, but are clearly just images of the actual models of the creatures. Once you leave the titular Shore the nice atmosphere and excusable errors are replaced with constant teleporting between rooms accompanied by the disembodied narration of a kid trying to deepen his voice on Xbox Live. Run away from a monster that is either faster than you or laughable, fade to black, next room. Complete a puzzle that consists of "put object on pedestal, hold left click on thing using the artifact", fade to black, next room. This seems to only serve to pad the run time. As previously mentioned, the Lovecraft mythos is reduced to a haunted house of characters from stories. This seems like a new developer that is clearly passionate about the mythos and wants to include every character possible, but they have lost the meaning of the work along the way. The infinitely large forces of nature that existed formlessly and incomprehensibly by men now screech and pose like Godzilla before riding away into the sunset on an obelisk. The positive aspects are really strong, but are dragged down so badly I couldn't come to finish it. Apologies for my harshness, I understand this is a new developer and their effort is commendable, but I believe this kind of harsh but fair (I hope) critique is important for artists and will only benefit you in the long run.
• gamedeal user

  Dec 8, 2021

  I really want to like this game and it had a lot of beauty to it. What I can't forgive is slapping invisible walls everywhere and tiny object hunting. "Ah, that looks like a path to where I want to go. That telescope drew my attention along the shore" "You can't go that way" "Why not? It's less steep than the path I was just on" "Nope" "Seriously, if you could just let me walk forward half a pace, I could explore that open area" "Nuh uh" "How about here?" "Hah" "Here?" "Pfff" "Where am I SUPPOSED to go then?" *Shrugs* "Just wander about a bit and look for tiny items" "Why do some items go to my inventory and some of them stay where they are?" *Shrug* "That coin I picked up, but the other ones I just leave? Why?" *Shrug* "Oh, I give up" *Shrug*
• gamedeal user

  Feb 21, 2022

  Overall "The Shore" is a pretty good cosmic horror game with an excellent soundtrack and tons of awesome Lovecraftian references and aesthetics which are really brought to life with incredible detail
• gamedeal user

  Jun 12, 2022

  Its a lovely crafted game.
• gamedeal user

  Jun 26, 2022

  Man, I really wish I could say that The Shore was a good game. Lovecraft always works for me. And the graphics, I mean, look at them! They are gorgeous! The maker of this game has a GREAT talent for graphics. The game sparks and shines with atmosphere, perfectly catching the Lovecraft theme. Thumbs up for that! But - as you may have expected - here comes the big fat "but". The game around the awesome setting and graphics is bad. Really bad. It would have worked PERFECTLY as a walking simulator. Nothing wrong with walking simulators - there are many great examples out there! Take the fantastic setting, add some smart puzzles maybe, have the developer shine where he shines and focus on that. It's so sad that the decision was made to add combat to The Shore. And this for me ruins most of the game's magic. It's so poorly implemented, so annoying. So much trial and error. Big monster pops up, bam bam bam yer dead, way too long loading screen, try over until you figure out what the hell the game wants from you. Zero fun. Also, I hate invisible walls. Sometimes when I walk along the shore, not exactly knowing where to go next, I constantly kept bumping into invisible walls. Not fun either. And part three: lame teleports from scene to scene. You don't fluently move through the game, but you solve a situation, and then you get teleported to the next. I am sure there would have been smarter solutons for this. Real sorry to say, but in my opinion this was a missed chance. Die-hard-Cthulhu fans may still give it a try when on sale. It's a great design showcase, but sadly not a good game.
• gamedeal user

  Aug 27, 2022

  To begin this review, let me say I was looking forward to playing this game since it came out and I saw a YouTube video showing the graphical quality/atmosphere - other than this one video I knew nothing else about the game - and I picked it up on sale for $5. I'm always down for some Lovecraftian horror - but when it's just Lovecraft for the sake of Lovecraft with no real cohesive story or purpose, it may as well be a fun-house ride. There was a lot of Elder God-Name dropping and not much else in terms of story beats. First off - I loved the graphics, and most of the visuals. There were a lot of inconsistent moments in the story telling, and I ended up getting sick of the loading screens breaking up the action. Writing was weak - nothing wrong with non-English speaking developers creating games in English but hire a native English speaker/writer or get someone to help you with spell-checking to make the writing flow better and make things more comprehensible for the language you're creating the game in. Immediately takes me out of a game when I have to guess what someone was trying to say - especially in a game where you have the player collecting several pieces of written word to form the backstory. Sound design was rough at best (voice lines would randomly get louder and quieter without reason) and most of the time it seemed like the audio sliders in the menu had no effect on volume. In terms of game objectives - I often found myself just sprinting through while being chased by various random tentacle beasties and straight up guessing what I was supposed to be doing - definitely not a good sign for a game as linear as this. I got where I needed to go but having to guess so much and having items around the place that you can pick up and look at but not use for anything was tantamount to having empty drawers in horror games like Layers of Fear, or Outlast. The feeling of exploring and finding what you were looking for is fantastic but not when mired deeply in the illusion of choice and discovery Overall, a pretty average experience. More like a collection of "oooo look at this elder god, and here's this guy too!" moments than any kind of cohesive, story driven experience. Had a lot of potential but fell short. All I can say is, I'm glad I didn't pay more than $5 for it and even then, I almost wish I hadn't. Props to the dev(s) for pushing this out and attempting to create something awe-inspiring and terrifying but I hope they learnt a lot from this experience.
• gamedeal user

  Nov 2, 2022

  6.7/10 OVERALL Gameplay - 6/10 Graphics - 8.5/10 Fun-Factor - 7.5/10 Replayability - 5/10 Price-Point - 6.5/10 (at time of purchase) $5.33 I definitely enjoyed The Shore but, about halfway through it felt like puzzles and unnecessary combat were tacked on when they didn't need to be there. First off, the game is beautiful, the environment and detail is phenomenal. I think, however, that this game would've benefited more just solely being a walking simulator or having some cat and mouse stealth mechanics instead of the combat. All in all, the theme is great and for the 5 dollar price point, i would recommend.
• gamedeal user

  Jan 1, 2023

  At some point close to the end i clicked the button to access my inventory. Then on the screen was written "I have lost everything". My heart broke instantly.
• Wolf-Lord

  Jan 15, 2023

  I'm an big fan of the Lovecraft universe and mostly seek out games that is bringing homage to the lore. I'm also an big fan of these type of first person photo realistic horror story telling games and just immerse myself fully when playing them. In an age where AAA titles are 80% trash and overpriced incomplete garbage indie games/developers makes up for it. We need to support indie developers more and let AAA companies rot in hell with their unfinished and bug filled games. Enjoyed everything The Shore had to offer and leaves me wanting more. Game is visually stunning and beautiful and the story is gripping... is he awake? The animations of the larger set pieces was done perfectly and I could not keep myself from staring at what is happening right in front of my eyes. Cannot wait to see what this developer comes up with next! 10/10 Recommend to any Lovecraft fan.